The Blog Lives! And Now Partnered!

Hi all, I know many of you have reached out to me wondering where my posts have gone! Well, I’ve been spending a LOT of time over at HowToPriest.com as I am an admin over at H2P. Additionally H2P has been the home for both my Disc and Holy Guides all expansion long. H2P is a great community for priests of all specs. As of today, all future posts will be at www.howtopriest.com/blog The H2P blog will have all original content, cover ALL THREE SPECS of the priest class, and include articles by the admin and moderation team at H2P as well as guest posts by our Senior Members! Additionally the H2P Blog will be the exclusive home for all new content (and many old/high traffic/reference material from) Tales of a …

Update on Heroic Throne of Thunder Raiding ...

I’ve been pretty quiet as of late on the blog, but I hope to do some more visual posting. Firewalls at work have ramped up preventing me from doing ANY editing at the office— but video posts are always more fun I think. I’ll be posting a retrospective post in the coming days… but until then here’s a little treat!

5.2 Discipline Guide – Thunderstruck!

Now yes, we know 5.2 is just riddled with tons and tons of AC/DC references all over the internet… so why not one more? Sorry! I have updated my 5.2 guide which can be found in full as well as discussion over at HowToPriest.com here. The Holy Guide will be updated in the next 24-48 hours, although it has minimal changes from 5.1! (Grrrr….that irritates me on a number of levels. Holy’s shortcomings being overlooked). Hope everyone is enjoying the Throne of Thunder, stay tuned for the Holy update, as well as a State of the Union 5.2 in the next week. Keep calm, and keep healing.

Holy and Disc Best Practices

Inspired by a post by my good friend Vixsin, I’ve decided to do a quick “Best Practices” post. In the interest of full-disclosure, she did toss me an email while I was at a work conference asking for a “best practices” quick hit-list… and I promised her I would do it…. several times. But, I simply let work get ahead of me and forgot to email her back… so, my dear Vix, I apologize! Hopefully this helps somewhat! But before I dive into the meat and potatoes of the post, I will provide a brief update on myself: it has been a chaotic January for me. Work has been quite busy with a lot of travel, my SO and I are on the property hunt here in Boston (Rant: SO …

Keep Calm and Keep Healing

Despite having a crazy busy month both in game and out, I’ve spent some time reading at the official forums, the HowToPriest.com forums, Twitter, and a number of emails I have received… and there is a very large negative cloud over the healing priest community right now. These negative statements seem to mostly revolve around our output (both as Holy and Disc) as well as our mana regeneration. First let me just say… In all seriousness, people need to KEEP CALM. The state of the priest is not as dire as some of the forum posts I have seen might suggest. Perhaps the biggest question I am seeing all over forums (official forums, H2P, and otherwise): Why are priests so under-powered and horrible right now? This. Is. A. Fallacy. I am sick of …

Mana Regen vs Throughput

Mana management is a huge part of our game now in Mists of Pandaria. Gearing, gemming, enchanting, and spec choices will be pivotal in how your longevity impacts these first few raids— particularly since so many of these fights are much longer than we have typically seeing in Cata and even WotLK. Endurance will be just as important as our raw output– or will it? To find out that answer you should be asking yourself these questions: 1. Am I spec’d into the most appropriate regen model for this fight? Are you struggling to find gaps to fit your PW: Solace in? Are you getting fewer than (in aggregate) 8 Solaces per minute? Would Mindbender work better for you? What about FDCL? 2. Are you using your potions at an opportune time? …

Mists of Pandaria: Initial Impressions

First I am excited to say that my Goal of Hitting Realm First! Priest was completed! That was only one-upped by the fact that I also shared Realm First! 90 as well. My friend, guildmate and hunter, Esoth, was Realm First! 90, but delayed his final quest turn-in nearly 40 minutes while my 5 man team struggled with some of the final gather X# of items quests and were getting screwed with the RNG drops.— and we all dinged 90 and shared the Feat of Strength within 30 seconds of each other. Overall the grind to 90 was a lot of fun. I enjoyed the excitement in guild chat, mumble, and my 5 man team. We were done in 13-14 hours if I recall– not too bad. (I didn’t look at the time …

Stay Healthy During Mists of Pandaria

Yes… I am planning on staying up until I hit 90. I am going for Realm First! Priest with a few of my other guildies going for their realm first classes as well. Being a Bostonian, this means Mists launches at 3:00 am local time for me– certainly a daunting task. I will, however, be sleeping a full 7 hours before launch, so I should be IRL “Well Rested”. How much XP will we need to burn through? As of a few days ago, the total XP you needed to go from 85 – 90 is: 97,500,000. (source)… yikes! What is most important if you are staying up late (or as the case may be: early) to grind to 90 is to take care of yourself! Expansion launches are often a time …

Holy Word: Sanctuary – Scaling in Mists...

Holy Word: Sanctuary has been a spell that has been in flux since its introduction at the start of Cataclysm… and that continues to happen even on the Beta– HW: Sanc has undergone a few changes in preparation for Mists of Pandaria, one of which Ghostcrawler commented on from a question I posted in the Beta Class Feedback Forum. ”Sanctuary should scale with haste like Efflorescence. It just adds more ticks.” Well, I must say I was pretty darn excited! It didn’t make sense that it didn’t scale from haste previously. I quickly logged into the beta to test out the breakpoints I had previously calculated and to see these additional ticks at work… But wait… they added Haste scaling, but took away mastery’s scaling from HW: Sanctuary. Noooooo! I …

Chakra and Why You Should Be Concerned

I don’t like writing posts like this – and by that I mean posts where I completely disagree with the direction the development team is going with the priest class. That said, I do believe and trust that Blizzard can develop and balance their game correctly. The development team for Mists of Pandaira has been really good at communicating this beta, and the number of blue comments on the beta forums seems much greater than before. (GC has been great at engaging us.. as well as the CM team on Twitter as well. I have to tip my hat to them there). However, it doesn’t mean I love every change that they make… and sometimes, its important for us to point out changes that could be missed… and I do …

Priest Resources

An interesting change happened with Meta Gems in 4.3– one that I don’t think anyone saw coming: Ember Shadowspirit Diamond and Burning Shadowspirit Diamonds are now up for debate… Burning Shadowspirit Diamonds are no longer 54 Int and 3% Critical Damage. These meta gems now provide 54 Intellect and 3% Critical Effect.

Read that again… Critical Effect, not Critical Damage. This means heals are included in the 3% increased critical effect. Prior to this change, the only meta that had a +critical heal bonus was the Revitalizing Shadowspirit Diamond. (Which, for the most part, was dismissed as not worth it due to the increased value of Intellect over Spirit on the diamond as a basic stat– for both Holy and Disc)

Now, before you go swapping out your meta gems… evaluate the change. What does this mean for you? Well, obviously, the evaluation is going to be purely debating throughput vs regen.

On one hand you have the Ember Shadowspirit Diamond, this provides provides an increased mana pool, which in turn affects “total mana” based regen. (Replenishment, Rapture, Hymn of Hope, Shadowfiend, etc…) Additionally, you start the fight with more mana, which is mana you wouldn’t have had without the meta gem.

On the other hand you have the Burning Shadowspirit Diamond which provides you with 3% increased critical effects… pure throughput increases to your critical heals. (Disc Priests: Dont forget that this, in turn, provides increased Divine Aegis). Now the amount of the HPS increase from the meta gem is a bit tricky to evaluate, given innately different crit chances for Disc and Holy and different stat weights based on role. So for now, I’m evaluating it from a more practical sense.

I would also be remiss not to at least awknowledge the activation difference between these 2 gems. Burning requires 3 red gems, while Ember requires 2 yellow. Of course, this is a bit easier (and arguable irrelevant) given the sheer number of gem sockets on T13 gear. However, it still is something to potentially consider given the gear options you have at your disposal and how heavy you might value Intellect over Haste or Mastery (Orange gems).

The question is: what is the give up? Let’s take a look at what the loss of mp5 of dropping the Ember for the Burning Shadowspirit Diamond. Of course, the loss of mana will be different person to person based on +% mana buffs. (Arcane Intellect, Expansive Mind, etc…) For simplicity’s sake, lets evaluate this only assuming Rapture, 5 Min CD Shadowfiend, and Replenishment.

Holy Priests would obviously ignore Rapture, making the net loss substantially less as a bulk of their mana restoration is Spirit based (Holy Concentration). Of course you could layer in Veiled Shadows, Arcane Torrent, Hymn of Hope, or even an imperfect 12 second Rapture timing… but it complicates the basic illustration being made.

We then would need to compare the loss of MP5 to the gain– is the tradeoff worth it? For simplicity’s sake, I’d rather not dive into the specific math and numbers of crit chance and its relative HPS. I’d rather evaluate this in theory and more of a practical approach: If you are currently having mana issues, starting with the extra 2% mana and having a higher MP5 suggests that the Ember might work better for you. If you arent, you could squeeze out some additional throughput by swapping to the Burning Shadowspirit. Bigger is better! Right? … right? Maybe…

There is no “right” answer. It really depends on your playstyle and preference. Perhaps you’d rather the added cushion of the regen, or perhaps you’d rather the raw throughput increases from the critical effect. The ball is in your court. However, take a good hard look at the actual regen you are giving up by switching… think at how little that is; how little spirit that “lost mp5″ represents. Particularly if you reforged away from spirit on any gear– could you get some of that spirit back through other methods? I bet you that the HPS increase, regardless of you value crit in your spec, is going to outweigh such a small amount of regen.

It’s also worth noting that critical strike provides throughput that’s mana neutral (unlike haste)…realizing the throughput gains don’t cost you extra mana. Therefore, the improved throughput can save you a small amount of mana simply because each critical potentially saves you a heal you may need to have cast in the absence of that critical heal. This is especially true for disc priests, where even crits that overheal can provide benefit via DA.

It’s probably not the largest effect, but the MP5 being lost, based on your charts, is already a small effect, so it might help weight things toward the Burning Shadowspirit Diamond.

Burning Shadowspirit may actually be more beneficial in the long run for Atonement priests, as well. Using the increased critical effect to the advantage of bigger Smites and Holy Fires also means bigger heals in that regard (as well as bigger DA procs from Atonement) when they do crit – not to mention slightly higher overall raid DPS.

I had actually read something about this, when I was reading the resto shaman compendium @ EJ, but I wasn’t quite sure how to apply it to priests.

It’s still too early for me to tell, with regards to how my mana is doing in Dragon Soul. I’ve done the first 4 bosses through the Raid Finder and the first 2 with my actual raid. Last night was our first night raiding and our second one will be on Sunday. Right now, I think I’m OK. I used a potion and Shadowfiend and did alright. I think I’ll play it cautious for a little while longer and then decide, but it’s tempting.

It still seems like it screams “discipline priest” and not really “holy.” Maybe I’m not thinking big enough.

Its more of a “no brainer” for Holy… since they get so little from 2% mana as all their regen is spirit based; look at the chart… remove rapture. You lose MINIMAL mp5; though you gain only on your crits. (But similar to druids, with the sheer mass of healing going out from Sanctuary, COH, POH, you’re total NUMBER of crits is fairly high). Look at your WOLs, pull out your crits only, and increase them. (and in turn it’ll increase Echo too, but for simplicity ignore Echo for now).

It’s not a HUGE HPS increase, but the swap is outweighed by far by the minimal MP5 you’d give up.

Really interesting I completely missed this. I’m playing disc currently in DS (8/8 normal in 25 man first night, 1 shot everything \o/). As i’m tank healing only really as we run with a resto shaman/holy pala/holy priest/resto druid and another resto shaman or pala I will be taking this new meta for sure. Mana issues will be a thing of the past once disc gets it’s 4 set in my opinion. Even now i’ve taken to reforging most of my spirit to crit.